Romans Chapter 1
Please feel free to share what you got out of the chapter. it starts with a greeting, then Paul say's how he longs to visit the Romans, then wham he starts in swinging. I like the way Paul writes, he doesn't mess around he just tells it like it is. I keyed in on the third section of the chapter. As I was reading I started to think about how things are right now. Just the other day some colleagues of mine were debating over a conversation about a girl(17) who wanted to live with her boyfriend to finish school because her dad was moving to the southern part of the state to start a new job. And he was considering letting her. I really could not believe the way the conversation was going. It didn't seem that anyone really understood the real problem. One girl said she didn't think it was a big deal at all and that another woman, who opposed, was just old fashioned. The one who opposed didn't really have a good reason either, just that she thought the girl was too young. True enough but I as a thirty year old guess I must be really old fashioned because I don't think any one of them realized how a seventeen year old girl is just asking to be used and abused by this guy. I was sad that her dad would just let some guy have his daughter like that and felt that there relationship must be just empty. I felt bad for the dad, but ever more so for the daughter. Its really too bad that we live in a society the has no value for morals. Having said all that I realized as I was reading the third section of the chapter that this is all a part of Gods plan. He knew from before we were created that we were going to fail, and fail bad. I love to hear people say that the scriptures are out dated and of no use in a modern world. Then I read a chapter like this and realize just how important the scriptures are today as they were when they were written. I pray for these people and love them a lot. I hope they too see value in my stand against living together before marriage. Again please feel free to share your thoughts
Hi Randy,
I like how you made a contemporary application to this first chapter in Romans. Wish I were better at that! I noticed also in this chapter that Paul answers a question that many folks ask. The question is, "If one can only be saved through hearing the Gospel, what about the poor heathen who have never heard it?" I am not naïve enough to believe this is an altogether disingenuous question by any means. No, the inquirer, now displaying a concern for unsaved heathen hither too never expressed, usually is implying that God is not fair in leaving some out of the spiritual informational loop. Therefore, said questioner could not possibly take seriously the salvation message in Christ. No, he or she is far too noble to deal with a god so unfair! ϑ
However, as we can see in Romans 1:18-32, Paul puts the blame for the heathen not knowing the Gospel of God's saving power on the unbeliever's themselves! He clearly shows that the unsaved are practicing today what their ancestors began in the distant past; namely, running away from God. Paul's language shows the present resistance to the light of God's natural creation "that which may be known". Unbelievers today prefer the primeval ooze as their source rather than acknowledging that they were formed by the loving hand of the Father-Creator! Verse 21 shows that all men once "knew God" (that is, that He was undeniably God) yet they turned away from all light in the past and now their offspring continue to deny in the present. Each generation of people in every family bears responsibility for the spiritual welfare of their descendants. Every newly born Christian's usual first thought is that their family needs to be saved.
So the idea that God will hold people responsible to believe Christ is based on the fact that the whole world once knew about God and His redemptive plan in Christ Jesus. The fact that many don't know, is held to their account as well as any in a family or generation that did not pass on the good news of Christ to their own kin or circle.
Also, as God gave His Son for the Gospel, so He has given all His other born-again sons to get out the Gospel in this present generation. As God was good in the past, reaching out to His enemies to keep them from experiencing His wrath, so He is good today, sending out armies of witnesses, seeking to turn the heathen from Hell. To God be the glory; shall not the Lord of all the earth do right? He sees the lost estate of millions of blind people headed for the pit, and in His compassion spared not His own Son or His new sons to save them. There has never been one person that set out to find God and did not.
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